Enjoying a pizza from your favorite local restaurant is one of the best ways to unwind after a long week at the office. While it's perfectly okay to indulge once in a while, you don't want to go overboard and ruin your diet. Whether you gather up your friends and family and dine out, or order your pizza to enjoy at home, you have plenty of options to cut some of the calories out of your pizza pie.
Cut Back on Cheese
You can't have pizza without the cheese, of course. But each ounce of shredded mozzarella cheese packs on 80 calories. So if your chef sprinkles on a pound (16 ounces) of mozzarella, then cuts your large pie into eight pieces, you're getting 160 calories from cheese alone from each slice. You can still get plenty of melty, gooey cheese, with fewer calories, by asking for half the cheese.
Ask for Less Sauce
Pizza sauce is high in sugar and calories, and low in nutrients. A single cup of traditional pizza sauce can have over 160 calories. When your pizza cook spreads about four cups of pizza sauce over your large pie and cuts it into eight slices, you could be getting more than 80 calories per slice. Just like you asked for half the cheese, request light on the sauce to minimize the overall calories in your favorite entree.
Fill Up on Veggies
Non-starchy veggies aren't just flavorful additions to your pizza; they're also incredibly low in calories. Plus, they're full of fiber, so you're more likely to fill up quicker -- and possibly eat less. A 1/2-cup portion of cooked veggies contains roughly 25 calories. You don't have to stick to just one type either. Pile on all your favorite vegetables, like spinach, tomatoes, onions, or peppers.
Swap to Lean Meats
Stacking your favorite meats on your pizza pie is the ideal way to finish it off. One of the most popular types of pizza meat is pepperoni. But each slice of pepperoni adds on 10 calories. This means that if your slice of pepperoni pizza has 10 slices of pepperoni, you're getting 100 calories just from the meat. Sausage crumbles are just as indulgent, packing on 100 calories per 1/4-cup. Instead, ask for sliced chicken breast. Each ounce of cooked chicken breast has roughly 40 calories. You can even opt for vegetarian-friendly tofu, which has fewer than 25 calories per ounce.
Ask a restaurant like Original Italian Pizza Pa if they have light alternatives, too. In some cases, you might be able to get low-fat cheese or reduced-calorie pizza sauce, among other lighter options.
Share8 June 2018
Welcome to my website. My name is Joanne Taylor. My family and I love eating out at restaurants, but with there being five of us, it can get expensive. In order to be able to continue to indulge in the luxury of eating at restaurants, my husband and I have come up with ways to order and save money. We always thought that ordering kids meals for young children was the cheapest way to go. But we found in many cases, it’s less expensive to order one regular meal and let our two youngest children split it. We make use of coupons whenever possible, restaurant daily specials, early bird specials, and other money savers. I’m going to share some of the ways we’ve been creative in the hope that you will find some useful tips.
